We have been advised by the Scarborough Club that they have resolved their site problems so GB7RW will no longer be coming to East Yorkshire. They have decided to relocate GB7RW to near Robin Hood's Bay where they have been offered free Internet and a peppercorn rent. The site was used in the past for 2m packet operation.

That means that there will be even less 2m D-Star coverage into East Yorkshire so your Committee is looking at the possibility of putting a 2m node on GB7HU. The G4KLX gateway software is very flexible and will allow us to add a 2m homebrew node to work alongside the existing 70cm Icom kit. A PRF10 radio is available and we have some filters so all we will need is a GMSK modulator which makes the project financially viable.

I am pleased to announce that yesterday I took possesion of keys giving us access to an additional radio site at High Hunsley. This is a major development for the Group that will allow expansion and protection of existing services.

The new site is a commercial radio site operated by Maxxwave a company based in Leicestershire who have been extremely generous and helpful in making the site available to us for a nominal peppercorn rent. We will have our own rack, feeders and antennas on the site for 2m and 70cm.

It is just a couple of hundred yards or so from where our repeaters were located prior to the move to Weedley at the end of the 90s and will be used as a emergency comms repeater site using crossband linking and as a fall-back should Weedley become unavailable.

We also plan to use it so that we can take over the financially troubled GB7RW 2m D-Star repeater at Octon and move it to Weedley so that it can be integrated into our existing 70cm D-Star repater GB7HU giving us a full D-Star capability for East Yorkshire.

Now that the gateway software has been updated to the latest release, new features are available on GB7HU as per Andy's earlier post. However, to use these features you must register by browsing to http://xreflector.net/neu3/ and then look for the CCS System menu on the left side. Click on 'register'. You will be asked to agree to the terms of use and you must supply an email address, password, callsign and your local D-Star repeaters callsign.

Upon a successful registration you will be issued a unique four digit code which can be used by other CCS users to locate your radio on the DCS network to initiate a call. I was issued with 9663 so if you punch that in on the DTMF buttons on your radio the system will link you to me wherever I am.

The D-Star CCS (Call Connection Service) is a newly added feature of the G4KLX ircDDB Gateway Software that allows you to call any station, anywhere in the world, by transmitting a four digit code into your D-Star radio’s DTMF keypad...

This new method of callsign routing uses the ircDDB database to locate the last repeater or gateway that the station last used. It then connects all parties together, so that everyone can hear both sides of the conversation, without interrupting any QSOs that are already in progress, and it even works if the repeaters are connected to a reflector - The system allows the station receiving the call to just reply, without having to use the Icom R > CS key to program the return path.

The CCS system was developed by DG1HT, the developer of the DCS reflector system and a member of the DV-RPTR team. For more information and registration, see http://xreflector.net. This will be added to GB7HU when we are able to visit the site update the ircDDB Gateway software.

It was the night before Christmas all through the land, Not an amateur was using the 2 metre band.Some were blaming the jammer but he wasn’t there,When Ofcom had got him he just didn’t care!

Had all the M3’s gone on HF instead?Or, dusted off the CB that lay under the bed?Had they gone QRT or “SWARed” up their twigs,Or, spent all their money on new HF Rigs?

When out of the blue a “K” from GB3HS came on the air, And a bleep from the D-Star; was there somebody there?A flicker on the 10GHz from the old ATV,Was there really a picture or just snow to see?

All of a sudden whilst drinking my beer, A thought of what might happen became really clear.With no users, there’d be no repeaters, no beacons, all canned!Surely they wouldn’t auction off our VHF bands?

Whilst we still have repeaters, at least for today,With electricity bills, insurance and site rental to pay.We run it, and fix it and clear weeds from the grounds.So please “Use it or lose it” and spare us ten pounds!

The GB7HU D-Star Repeater is now running new gateway software - the G4KLX ircDDBGateway.

The new icrDDBGateway software offers a much improved "callsign routing" system which is updated in near real-time via Internet Relay Chat (irc) and connectons to the existing REF reflectors, as before, and the new and much improved DCS reflectors - which have an updated network protocol designed to prevent transmissions being lost in the "D-Star black hole".

Each transmission on a repeater or gateway capable of ircDDB routing can be seen on the ircDDB Live web page (http://www.ircddb.net/live.htm), which can be used to see which users and reflectors are active before linking.

If you would like your callsign to appear on this listing and be seen on this web page, you need to turn your visibility on - when you first go on this page you will see a blue bar which links to a web page describing how to do this by editing the URCALL on your radio. You only need transmit once with this setting as this is remembered by the system.

From the user's standpoint the system works in exactly the same way as before, although we don't have all the features working at the moment so please bear with us. The repeater is set to connect to the DCS005B reflector by default and after 15 minutes of inactivity so you should always find someone to talk to and I am monitoring this reflector from home by my own gateway if you have any questions.

Attached to this message are the manuals for the Gateway and for the Repeater package which allows non-Icom systems to be connected - including FM and EchoLink. I will be going around the local radio clubs giving lectures on the new system when I work out how to use it myself!

On Saturday 18th August, a working party of five Committee members managed to fit a day in at the repeater site between contests, holidays and bad weekend weather.

The priority was the replacement of the Diamond X50 antennas previously used on GB3HS with a pair of commercial grade Amphenol J-Beam folded dipoles. The spec. can be found here: http://www.amphenolantennasolutions.co.uk/7050135-omni-center-fed-dipole-vh-pol-135-160-mhz-39-p.asp The X50s are not ideal for a repeater on a hill as reference to their radiation plots show that the main lobe is around 5 deg above horizontal. This is not helpful as most of the areas we need to cover are at sea level or not much above and therefore are below horizontal. The folded dipoles have the classic doughnut radiation pattern so they squirt RF in virtually all directions.

The main problem with the X50s is that they are made from mechanically jointed dissimilar metals. This causes noise to be generated in the TX antenna, when it has RF applied, which is then picked up on the RX when the antennas are flexed in the wind. We know that there will still be crackles caused by the tower in windy conditions but we hope that overall there will be an improvement.

We also took the opporutnity to align the new TX and RX antennas to maximise the isolation bewteen them and that has resulted in abolutely no desensitisation of the RX when the TX is on.

We also cleared out a lot of redundant hardware and equipment from the hut to make way for some new shelving. The shelving will hold new filters for GB7HU and a 2.2kVA UPS. The site was sprayed with SBK to kill off the weeds that seem to have attempted a takeover.

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